Weasleysitting
by The Kitty-kitty
Summary: Alistor Moody had twenty years experience of eing an Auror... but nothing NOTHING could prepare him for this fresh horror... babysitting seven Weasleys.


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Weasley-sitting

Each had a mop of flaming red hair and freckles scattered across their faces. He'd been told the two six year olds, Greg and Ford, were twins but to be perfectly honest, he couldn't tell any of the children apart. Molly had tried very hard to help him - handing him one sticky toddler and telling him clearly that this was Ginny who was allergic to most fruit - then handing him an identical but slightly less sticky child and announcing that this was Ron, who wasn't allergic to fruit but was terrified of spiders.

Now each one of them seemed to be looking at him as though eyeing up the enemy, save for, possibly, Ginny who was trying to bite though her brother's book.

For the first time in years, Alastor Moody was well and truly terrified. Arthur had told him to treat them like he treated new Aurors, but he was sure they'd be ready for any shouts of 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE' and he could hardly curse children and tell them it was their own fault for not being, as he'd said before, constantly vigilant…

… for one thing, they'd probably start crying. Moody couldn't handle crying. He could handle female death eaters (which he was sure existed beneath the very baggy black robes) who screamed and tried to counter-curse and he could definitely handle female Aurors, who generally tried to punch someone else if they heard some bad news, but crying was something he'd never had to deal with.

"You don't look like the other baby-sitters," said the tallest, looking at him with an expression startlingly beyond his years over the edge of his glasses.

"They were called Tiffany an' Babs an' Sirius an' Tracy. Wass your name?" demanded either Fred, Geoff or Ron.

"S'Moody, isn't it?" his identical counterparts demanded together. Moody supposed these were the twins, Fred and Gary.

"My mum says you're a nutter," continued possibly-Gerry.

"George!" scolded the tall one, maybe-Percy.

"She does!" George grumbled.

"Looks like a nutter," Fred added, before breaking from the internal argument between the family that had, until now, not even seemed to involve Moody himself. "C'n I touch your eye?"

"Fred!" chided Percy. "I'll tell mum!"

"I'll tell mum!" the twins mimicked.

"Nooo!" howled Ron.

"Wass wrong ickle Ronnikins?" asked George.

"Afraid Perce will tell mummy?" asked Fred.

"Ron's a scaredy cat!" they chorused.

"I am not a scaredy cat!" wailed Ron.

"Scaredy cat, scaredy cat!" chanted the two.

Moody glanced from one Weasley to the other, watching Percy give him an expectant look and then looking from Ginny, still sucking placidly on her brother's book, to Fred, George and Ron who looked ready to murder one another. As the three seemed to be taking no notice of him at all, he got up, walked right around them, crouched down and roared 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE!' right into the ears of the twins.

All three, rather than being alarmed, turned very slowly and gave him a scathing look. Percy's head dropped into his hands. Moody tensed, unsure of just what was wrong.

"uuuu_uuu_UUU_WWWWAAAAA**AAHHHHHHHHH**HHHH_!" wailed Ginny, throwing her head back and screaming with every inch of her little lungs.

"Ginny gets bad tantrums," said Percy placidly, closing the book on his lap with a snap. "Once she starts crying she certainly won't stop for a while. If I were you I'd stop her before she gets into her stride, she just gets louder. She nearly smothered herself in the middle of a tantrum once."

Moody opened his mouth, but Percy gave him another despairing look.

"No offence Mr. Moody, but if you yell at her again or tell her to stop she'll probably only scream twice as loudly."

Despairingly, Moody gave up any pride he might have carried before now and decided that as he was in enemy territory, he might as well go with the flow.

"Well," he said gruffly. "What do you suggest I do?"

"Pick her up," said Percy.

"Give her Fluffles," said Fred (or Gareth).

"Fluffles is her favourite toy," said George.

"S'a rabbit," Ron confirmed. "A blue one."

"Weasley, go and get the toy," growled Moody.

"We're_ all _Weasleys," said Percy pointedly. "I'm Percy. The twins are Frederick and George, Ronald's the youngest boy and the girl's called Ginevra."

"He calls people their full names," said Fred conspiracionally. "I'm Fred, not Frederick."

"Ginny only answers to Ginny, not Ginevra," said George in the same tone.

"Ronald's a stupid name anyway," Ron sulked.

"Percy!" said Moody, getting closer to his wits' end. "Get this… 'Fluffles'."

"Mum says you should encourage us to use the magic word," Percy deadpanned, astonishingly managing to keep his voice at a monotone even when shouting over his little sister's screams.

"… the magic word?" Moody snarled impatiently. "Get up those bloody stairs and get that rabbit or I'll crucify you!"

Percy continued to give him the same disparaging look over the edge of his glasses. "If you're an Auror you're not allowed to break the law. The magic word is please. And our Mum says 'bloody' isn't a nice word."

"Granville-"

"George."

"George, get the rabbit," grunted Moody, picking the screaming child up with some difficulty. She kicked and yelled as tears streamed down her cheeks and her throat began to get raw. Ginny was now beginning to choke at the end of each heart wrenching wail, though she wasn't even pausing for breaths between screams.

Moody watched both twins bolt up the stairs before turning and catching another disapproving look from Percy.

"What?" he growled.

"You should _never _send the twins on an errand," said Percy solemnly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Ron nodded his agreement. "Mummy made them go across to Mister Lovegood once when Percy was really sick, to ask for potion ing... ingre... um, stuff you put in potions."

"Oh?" asked Moody nonchalantly. He was sure that no matter how badly this story turned out, it couldn't beat the antics of Molly Weasley's brothers. Gideon and Fabian Prewett had swapped Arthur's underwear with Dolores Umbridge's on his stag-night, so that Arthur had been forced to get married in a pair of the most hideous multi-coloured knickers he'd ever seen; what's more, when he finally got his own underwear back, he confided that he could never look at a pair of y-fronts the same way.

"They put a bar of soap they'd soaked in itching solution for a week in the Lovegood's bathroom," said Percy wryly. "Whenever they tried to wash it off, they ended up giving themselves a fresh coat."

Moody made a pained noise between his teeth.

"And Luna Lovegood was allergic to the solution. She was in St. Mungo's for two weeks," Percy finished, looking increasingly grave.

_They go upstairs, they get this 'Fluffles' and they come back down. What harm could they possibly do?_ thought Moody.

There was an explosion upstairs. If Moody hadn't spotted the debris falling past the window, he wouldn't have even heard it over Ginny's raw screams.

"What else will stop her?" he snapped at Percy, who looked at him with an almost offended expression.

"Fruit," said Percy. "She loves fruit."

"Oh no you don't. Your mother said she was allergic to fruit," said Moody, brandishing an accusing (if not slightly shaking) finger at the eldest Weasley present.

"You can easily cure allergic reactions," said Percy calmly. "But you can't stop Ginevra's tantrums."

Moody gave him a suspicious look. Finally, Percy stretched his arms out and took Ginny from his unresisting arms, stumbling under her weight. The toddler immediately stopped crying and, much to Moody's pure indignance, gave him a sweet smile before she resumed sucking her brother's book.

"Weasley-" said Moody threateningly.

"You didn't _ask me t_o stop her," Percy replied curtly. He sat down and opened 'The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2.' "If mum were here she'd probably be checking on the twins. It's a bad sign when they don't come straight back after blowing something up."

Moody turned and started up the stairs, growling under his breath about perfectly legal spells usable on minors and memory charms that would ensure Molly would never find out. Much to his further annoyance, Percy showed no sign of fear whatsoever. In fact, he had begun to hum a happy tune to himself.

"So you decided to make a 'rocket launcher'..." said Moody wearily.

"Yep," said Fred (or Graham) cheerfully.

"But you couldn't find any rockets... so you used..."

"Sausages," said Gabriel (or Fred) with just as much confidence as his brother.

"Sausages," repeated Moody.

"It's our new idea," said one of the twins. Rather spookily, as soon as he was finished the other twin was able to pick up on his brother's sentence and continue.

"Fast food," was the explanation.

"Fast... food..."

"Yeah, you put the raw sausage in the launcher-" explained Fred (or Gene).

"-and it pops out the other side fully cooked." Germaine (or Fred) finished.

"Fully cooked," repeated Moody. "And flying out through the window."

"Yeah, well, we don't use it for cooking," both twins said together. "We use it to confuse Bill."

"And what age are you?"

"7 in April."

"Have you considered careers as Aurors?"

The front door swung open behind them and slammed off the wall beside it. Moody turned so quickly that it seemed his wand had materialized in his hand and that he'd been standing in a defensive stance for the entire time. Completely non-plussed, the younger of the two new arrivals ducked under his arm, tracking mud into the rug.

"Hi!" said the elder of the two, an idiotic smile frozen on his face. He looked from the wand in Moody's hand to his face. "New babysitter?" 

Moody nodded mutely.

"You'll never believe this," continued the boy in the doorway, tugging at his shaggy red hair. "We were walking back from the pitch and it started raining sausages!"

"He's prayed for this day!" said the as-of-yet un-named younger brother. He'd picked up his little sister and seperated her from his school-book. He was now slightly cleaner, but only because Ginny was slightly dirtier.

From behind them, Percy cleared this throat. "The muddy one is Charles, the one who needs a haircut is Billius."

Billius rolled his eyes. "It's Bill, actually - and that's Charlie."

"You can put down the wand now," said Charlie helpfully. "Don't worry, we take a lot of babysitters like that."

"We were practicing," Bill said helpfully, popping a sausage into his mouth, completely oblivious to the sniggers of his two younger brothers. "Charlie's going to try out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team next year."

"Where's mum?" asked Charlie, oblivious to the fact that Ginny had now begun to suck on his arm in lieu of the book. "It's nearly dinner time."

"Well," said Bill, munching on another sausage from his pocket. "I'm full."

"Mum had a hospital appointment._ Honestly,_ if you could at least_ try_ to remember the important details, Charles," said Percy.

"W-why's she in hospital?" asked Bill.

"... guess," said Percy gravely.

"Not another one," moaned Charlie.

"Probably," said Bill dismally. "Bet it's a boy."

"One more and we'll have enough for our own quidditch team," said Charlie. "Percy doesn't count since the whole ... incident..."

Fred and George grinned horribly.

Moody didn't want to ask. He was sure he wasn't going to like the answer, but he could already feel the urge to ask anyway; it was awful, like knowing that if he put his toast in the broken toaster it would of course pop out three feet into the air and not only would he get the fright of his life, but he'd blast the toast into little bits and be left with no breakfast a kitchen full of toast crumbs - but the thing was, the_ irritating thing_ - was that he still put the damn bread in_ the sodding toaster_.

"... should I even ask?" he growled.

"It had a broomstick," said Fred.

"And Percy's pants," said George.

"I've heard enough."

"I concur," said Percy.

"Speak like a normal person, Perce," sighed Bill.

"So..." Charlie looked toward the ceiling as he leaned on Moody's shoulder, a surprisingly heavy weight for a eleven year old. "Can you cook?"

"Um..." said Bill, "Charlie, he's a newbie. He won't be able to cook for seven people."

"What?" growled Moody. "I'll have you know I've cooked for twenty Aurors at once."

"Oh," said both brothers, placated.

"Okay," said Bill, "just remember. I won't eat potatoes, Charlie's a vegetarian but he doesn't actually like vegetables and he needs second helpings on everything. None of Percy's food can be touching or he won't eat it, and if he does eat it he'll throw up. Fred and George will eat anything and I mean _anything,_ so you have to give them things they can eat with their fingers or they'll eat half the cutlery along with their dinner and you can't give either of them a fork 'cause they torment Ron with it. Oh! Speaking of Ron, he's got sensitive teeth so the food can't be too hot - and Ginny's allergic to most fruits but you'll have to give her something she doesn't have to chew at all, she's still not on proper solids yet." 

"Eh...?" croaked Moody.

"Great," said Bill. "If you need a hand I'll be upstairs and Charlie-"

"-will be busy," Charlie scowled. "I'm still trying to heal Ron's puffskien."

He shot a grumpy look at the twins, who had switched to the most innocent smile Moody had ever laid eyes on. Lucius Malfoy would have given his entire fortune to smile like that - he could have gotten away with anything.

"Bludger practice," sighed Charlie, stomping up the stairs. "Honestly."

Bill winked at Fred and George before picking up his little sister and handing her a new school-book to suck on before following Charlie, Ginny in arm, up the stairs.

Moody gave the kitchen a wary look.

"We could make some saus-" started Fred.

"NO."

"But-"

Moody leaned very close to Fred, glaring at him with both eyes and saying in his softest, gnarliest, most dangerous voice, "would you like me to repeat myself?" He said it the way most Aurors would say "would you like me to splatter your death-eater-scum brains against the back-wall of this prison cell?"

"No," said Fred, completely unaffected. "But, listen, you don't get it. We can just-"

"No!"

"But-" said George.

"NO MEANS NO."

Percy looked up once more from his book. "Frederick, George. Stop pestering Mister Moody or I'll tell mum."

The twins gave Percy a venomous look for a second before retreating and Moody saw a smug look cross Percy's face.

He turned to walk into the kitchen and nearly stepped on Ron, who was giving him a hypnotic gaze from the threshold. Moody wondered if he was expected to pick the boy up or whether he would just move on his own.

"What?" he asked Ron.

"Oh," said Bill, appearing at the top of the stairs. "ONE MORE THING! Ron won't eat unless he watches you cook everything!"

Ron grinned.

"My kind of kid," said Moody.

"This is..." Charlie scooped up a spoonful of the ominous looking slop and let it dribble back into his bowl.

"Porridge," said Percy.

"Nuh uh," said Ron. "It's pea soup."

Percy shot Ron a curious look.

"I helped!" said Ron happily.

"It looks... lovely," said Charlie dismally.

"Yes," Bill emphasized. "I'm sure it tastes fantastic too, so let's stop looking at it and start eating it, hmm?"

"Yeah," said Charlie. "Off you go."

Bill gave Moody a pained smile and scooped up a liberal amount of the pea soup before bringing it toward his mouth.

"Actually," he admitted, "I'm kind of full from the sausages so I don't think I'll be able to eat all this," before downing the spoonful.

The rest of the family, including Moody, watched him anxiously.

"mmMMmm," said Bill exaggeratedly, rubbing his stomach. Charlie shrugged and picked up a spoonful, looking at it doubtfully, but before he could but it in his mouth he heard an awful retching sound beside him. Bill flung himself right out of his chair and ran for the sink.

As one, the rest of the family pushed their bowls away from them.

Moody raised one almost non-existant eyebrow at Ron. "Do you eat Chinese food?"

Ron nodded happily.

"Not a chance," said Charlie. "Do you know what they found in the local Chinese restaurant last year? A dog, chopped up, in the freezer."

"Charles," said Percy patiently. "Just don't eat anything that has 'dog' in the title."

"I can't," whined Charlie. "All the titles_ are in Chinese_."

"How did they know it was a dog if it was chopped up?" asked Fred.

"They'd have to cook it and taste it," said George.

"And to know the taste of dog wouldn't you have had to eat dog before?" asked Fred.

"Shhh," said Charlie, going green. "Those poor dogs."

"Indian?" Moody suggested.

"Ew," said Bill.

"No thank you," said Percy.

Fred and George made twin disgusted faces.

Charlie looked heartbroken, "those poor cows."

"Fast food?"

Charlie sunk into a further slump. "Those poor... unidentified creatures."

"I don't think there's actually enough meat in that stuff to count, Charlie," said Bill, who was still leaning over the sink.

"I don't eat burgers," Ron piped up by Moody's shoulder. "They're icky."

"Icky isn't a word, Ronald," grumbled Percy.

"Italian," suggested Moody, showing incredible bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.

"Those poor-" started Charlie, before considering it for a second. "Italian's the one with the pasta? And the tomatoes?"

"That's right," said Moody hopefully.

"And pizza?" asked Ron.

"Doesn't sound too bad," said Bill.

In forty years of experience Moody had never seen anyone be so amazingly resourceful with the equipment of a bowl of spaghetti, a stolen wand and a bottle of ketchup. Neither had he seen anyone work so fast - full grown men couldn't come close to the speed of the six year old twins. He stopped wondering just how much Fred and George took after their uncles started wondering how Gideon and Fabian had managed to get re-incarnated a _year before_ their deaths.

With Charlie's wand, they'd strengthened the spaghetti and knotted it together into a huge pasta rope, then divided it into about twenty smaller pieces before hiding on either side of the door to the sitting room, holding the spaghetti across the threshold. They'd then gotten Ron to send Ginny into another tantrum so Moody would have to go and see what the matter was and then -

He could see fifteen well-tied knots up his front and could be fairly sure there were more around the back.

He was sure squirting a happy face on his face with the ketchup served some twisted purpose, but for the life of him he could not figure out just why. Possibly, it was a childish (and delicious) version of the dark mark.

"Sod," he grumbled, discovering he was tied so tight he couldn't even move his arm. Out of habit, he usually kept his wand up his sleeve so that a quick flick of the wrist could produce it, but with his arms and hands bound tightly to his side, he couldn't charm himself out of this predicament.

Moody wasn't a sadistic man. He liked children in the way most people with no experience of them do - at a distance - and teenagers had three reliable settings; moody anger, angsty depression and extreme happiness. However, it was for moments like this that Moody was known for being the cruellest trainee-Auror teacher of all. He decided that if he ever got out of this, the next time he got a new batch of trainees he'd pit them against the Weasleys and make immediate second-class Aurors out of anyone who survived.

"Hello Mr. Moody," said Percy placidly, appearing at the door with Ginny against his shoulder after finally giving up and answering her cries. "I presume there's a reason you're tied up and full of ketchup?"

Little git. Percy, the one who only told him what he'd done after he'd actually done something wrong, was the last person he wanted to see.

"Your brothers."

"Oh," said Percy, cracking a grin. "Did you forget 'constant vigilance'?"

Moody took a deep, soothing breath in. "Untie me, will you?"

"You didn't use the magic word," said Percy.

"Percy, would you_ please_ untie me?" he asked, grinding his teeth together.

"I will," sighed Percy, putting Ginny down and getting down on his knees to tackle the knots on Moody's legs. Surprisingly, he worked extremely fast, as though from experience - he wedged one of his mother's hairpins in between two certain parts of the knot and pulled it loose enough to untie before cutting the rope so that it couldn't be used again.

"You're not completely useless at this," growled Moody, which was probably the biggest compliment you'd get from him if he was in charge of you.

Percy grumbled, "I'm used to it. The twins don't learn new knots. Next time mum makes you babysit, I'd advise you to bring _your own_ hairclip."

"Oh yes," said Moody, finally reaching his wits end. His usual bark took on a sarcastic tone and he actually began to shake a little. "Yes, I'll bring the hair-clips and brushes and, while we're at it, why not make-up and girly magazines? You are all loonies! Every single one of you! You're nutcases! I've never seen anything like this in my entire career!"

"I know," said Percy tiredly. "You can stop flapping your arms now, you're free."

Moody panted, clearly even more infuriated by the lack of response from either Percy or Ginny (although to be fair, Ginny had more engrossing things to look at - at that moment, all ten little piggies since the twins had hung her socks on Moody's ears.) Then, casting a quick shielding spell over himself with his retrieved wand he stormed out through the kitchen and into the hallway.

"Fed. Gorge. Dead," said Ginny cheerfully.

Percy picked her sister up. "That's right, good girl!"

Moody had just reached the front door, sure that the twins were not in the house if they thought there was any chance he'd get free, when the door was thrown open.

"... Alastor," said Molly Weasley. "Now, I'm not one to question your methods but... I'd feel much more comfortable if you got off the floor and stopped pointing that wand at me."

Arthur reached out and helped Moody get to his feet. "The twins?" he asked, his expression understanding.

Molly grumbled, "I did tell them to be on their best behaviour."

"He's in one piece, Molly. I think they were," said Arthur.

"I'm sorry for anything they might have done," said Molly, giving him a critical inspection, as though to make sure for herself that he really was in one piece. "Well, the results are... I'm not going to have another baby."

"Congratulations," said Moody hoarsely, wringing out her hand and then bolting for the door.

"I don't think I've ever seen him run that fast," said Arthur, watching him go. "Do you get the feeling 'born free' should be playing somewhere?"

"I hope the children are in one piece."

"_Molly_..."


End file.
